Posts tagged AFGE
Trump administration settles unions’ legal challenge to mass layoffs during shutdown
September 27, 2026 // President Donald Trump's administration on Friday agreed, opens new tab to pull back open-ended permission for federal agencies to lay off employees during government shutdowns to settle a lawsuit by a group of unions.
Commentary: Federal unions owe workers more transparency. Congress can help.
September 24, 2026 // Congress should also ask why so few have and strengthen union accountability by requiring unions to disclose in their filings the total number of workers they claim to represent versus the number of actual members. They should also be required to report election turnout data at all levels: eligible voters, ballots sent and ballots returned — similar to shareholder-vote disclosures. For example, some unions use “delegate” qualification procedures that can insulate national incumbents from direct member voting. As a matter of fair competition, challengers should have the same access to membership contact lists as incumbents, with sufficient time to mount a campaign, with direct member voting as the preferred standard.
Editorial Board: Americans approve of unions. They just don’t want to join one.
September 9, 2026 // Gallup says 71 percent of Americans approve of labor unions, near a record high. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says 10 percent of American workers are in labor unions, near a record low. What gives? The first issue is that Gallup wasn’t asking whether respondents wanted to join a union themselves. In 2022, Gallup found that unions had the same approval rating as they do this year, but it also asked nonunion workers how interested they were in joining.
Maryland Union Leader Convicted of Defrauding Union To Enrich Herself
September 3, 2026 // Goodwin served as the president of the AFGE local 2419 union from January 2017 to August 2019. At the time of her service, the union represented approximately 500 federal employees of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As part of the fraud scheme, under Goodwin’s authority, the union transferred approximately $1 million received from NIH from multiple employee grievance lawsuits into the local 2419 bank account. She then used her power as signatory of the union bank account – which she retained as part of her scheme to defraud the union even after her tenure as president had expired in 2019 – to transfer the money to a sham consulting company that she owned.
Former Immigration Services Officer Charged With Defrauding Union
August 21, 2026 // A former Immigration Services Officer was charged and has agreed to plead guilty to stealing more than $60,000 from a labor union over the course of five years. Carol A. Aguja, 55, of Reading, Mass., was charged with wire fraud. A plea hearing has not yet been scheduled by the Court. According to court documents, Aguja was an Immigration Services Officer employed by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Between approximately 2015 and August 2024, Aguja also served as Treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 38 (AFGE Local 38), a labor organization that represented USCIS employees who lived in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire.
NTEU sets deadline for its members to resume paying dues
August 18, 2026 // According to three union officials, NTEU members who do not sign up for dues payments by Sept. 5 will lose access to the union’s benefits until they resume paying dues. This includes eligibility for NTEU representation, either individually or as part of a group, the opportunity to receive remedies or settlements won through NTEU litigation, as well as member-only information and updates.
VA’s third attempt to scrap union contract heads back to court
August 5, 2026 // The American Federation of Government Employees on Tuesday filed its second motion asking U.S. District Judge Melissa Dubose to enforce her prior court orders after management said it would terminate the contract upon its scheduled expiration date of Aug. 8. The VA, for its part, argued that it is simply letting the deal expire. Though her injunction preserves the CBA only for “the remainder of the agreed-upon term,” the union said the VA issued a notice following the appeals court’s ruling in May seeking to begin negotiations for a new term. That action triggers a clause within the CBA—common across government—automatically extending the contract until the parties can reach a new deal.
Key parts of federal employee performance overhaul ‘non-negotiable,’ OPM says
August 5, 2026 // But some aspects of performance management are still negotiable, according to OPM, as long as they remain consistent with both the final rule and any applicable laws. Those include employees’ informal requests for a reconsideration of their rating; rules on awards and recognition programs; and feedback procedures between supervisors and employees.
Nation’s largest federal employee union campaigned against veterans benefits package
July 23, 2026 // The American Federation of Government Employees argued that the Republican-led legislation, which bundles together more than 60 veterans bills, contains partisan measures that will send more veterans to the private, for-profit health system outside the traditional VA network of hospitals and clinics for their care. The AFGE represents approximately 300,000 VA employees, according to the union. AFGE was joined by dozens of other labor unions opposing the bill.